Coop removed the lid and found the same C.B. pictured on the front, though with a few more scuff marks and nicks in the laminate wood paneling decorating the unit’s front. Coop lifted the device out of the box and set it on one of the log stools. It was surprisingly heavy.
The device had one input: a coiled cord walkie-talkie that ended in a fist-sized microphone with a transmission button on its side. The unit’s front panel had three small control knobs, a transmission window in the center that used a needle to indicate signal strength, and a large dial with 40 numbers that took up the rest of the C.B.’s faceplate. At the back of the unit was a retractable antenna that was bent in the middle.
Coop tried the volume knob, which gave an audible click as he turned the dial. The needle didn’t move.
“So, what do you think?” Coop asked. He seemed to be directing the question to Lamar.
“Uhhmm, I think it’s worth trying to fix it,” Lamar responded, uncertain why Coop and the others appeared to all be looking at him now.
Coop pushed the log stool holding the device toward Lamar.
“Then try fixing it.”
“What? Why are you asking me?” Lamar asked, confused and irritated by all the attention.
“Lamar, you’re the most tech-savvy person here,” Gaby said.
“Translation: you’re a nerd,” Ken chimed in.
“Forget it,” Lamar declared, growing indignant. “Let Coop do it.”
“Coop would only break it,” Gaby said, before quickly adding: “No offense.”
Coop waved the remark off.
Lamar was starting to feel like the others were ganging up on him. They all seemed to be imploring him with their eyes.
“I know computers!” Lamar said in a raised voice as he grew resentful. “My knowledge begins and ends in the 21st century! Give it to Ken, he looks like the right age for it.”
“First of all, I’m 33,” Ken replied. “Second, fuck you!”
“We could ask Beverly,” Coop hastily interjected to lower the tension.
Beverly shook her head no emphatically.
“I had to call the Geek Squad just to set up my TiVo,” she said. “I don’t know anything about electronics.”
“Gaby can’t do it, either,” Ken said. “That just leaves you, Mr. Wizard.”
“I don’t care,” Lamar shot back, crossing his hands over his chest defiantly. “I’m not touching it.”
Coop put his hand on Lamar’s shoulder.
“Lamar, please,” he pleaded. “This could get us rescued.”
“And it’ll get me pinched by the Triad!” Lamar shouted in a surprisingly loud voice for such a meek individual.
The others just stood there, staring blankly at him, struggling to process both his outburst and his words. Faced with their bewildered expressions, all of Lamar’s rage slowly filtered out of him. His hands, which had been balled into fists, relaxed and fell to his side.
“The Chinese mafia … wants you?” Ken asked, struggling to control his laughter.
“It’s not funny,” Lamar said.
“And here I thought the Army’s enlistment standards were bad,” Ken chortled.
Lamar barely even registered the barb. He sighed and decided to come clean.
“I told you all that my folks banned me from using tech,” he said, hanging his head dejectedly. “But I didn’t explain why. Does anyone here remember The Fappening?”
A look of recognition crossed Ken’s face.
“That thing with naked celebrity pics getting distributed online?”
Lamar reddened and slowly nodded.
Ken noticed that Gaby and Coop were glowering at him contemptuously.
“What? I’m as red-blooded as the next guy.”
“The Fappening was the brainchild of a hacker friend of mine,” Lamar explained. “And I gave him the software to do it. He asked me if I could dummy up something that could break cloud security protocols. Just something for the lulz. So I came up with a simple exploit that could brute-force a password by tricking the host into thinking multiple entries were a single request. I didn’t think anything of it. It was a toy for cracking off-the-shelf software. Six months later, he leaked the photos on 4chan. All of them captured with my program.”
“What does any of this have to do with the Chinese mafia?” Gaby asked, still bewildered.
“I made the mistake of telling my brother,” Lamar explained. “He told some people, who told some other people … you know how it goes. Then one night, mom spots some Triads parked in front of the house. Asian gangbangers in a black neighborhood; it caused quite a stir. After a couple of nights of this, Grammy goes out to confront them with a broom. All they’re willing to say is they want to talk ‘business’ with me. That shit freaked my folks out. Mom trashed my gear and Dad sent me up here, hoping my absence would cause them to give up on me.”
“You think word of this will serve as some kind of underworld recruitment drive?” Coop asked.
“If we make it out of here …” Lamar started.
“When we make it out of here,” Beverly corrected.
“Fine, when we make it out, it’ll be all over the news,” Lamar continued. “And if we escape by jerry-rigging a 40-year-old C.B., you might as well drop me off in Chinatown, because once word gets out that I can code and MacGyver, it won’t just be the local gangbangers hassling me; it’ll be the whole damn organization. Every parking space for 10 blocks will be filled with Triad cars.”
“You don’t think that’s a little paranoid?” Gaby asked.
Lamar snorted.
“I’m not sure it’s paranoid enough. What if a rival gang gets wind? How’s a turf war in the backyard sound?”
“Like you’re being paranoid,” Beverly deadpanned.
Lamar gave her a disgusted look, prompting Gaby to try another tack.
“Lamar, if we make it out of this, I’m sure any one of us would be happy to put you up until all that blows over,” Gaby said, trying her best to comfort the young man.
Ken and Beverly exchanged amused glances.
“But unless we get rescued, all of that is speculation,” she continued, seeing Lamar starting to waver. “The media coverage, the Triad, the turf wars, all of it.” She paused and looked him square in the eye.
“What we’re facing now is not speculation,” she pressed. “Wade, the forest, starvation. These are all very real threats. And unless you help us, we’ll never get past the real dangers to the potential ones.”
“If it’s a choice between the devil you know and the devil you don’t, I know which one I’d pick,” Coop added.
“Fine,” Lamar said with a sigh of defeat. “Give me the stupid thing.”
Coop scooted the log stool with the C.B. toward Lamar, who knelt down to examine it.
Despite its age, the C.B. looked to be in good condition, with no visible evidence of warping or damage apart from the bent antenna. Lamar noticed a red mark on the outer ring of the dial and leaned in closer to study it. Someone had painted a tiny but unmistakable “E” over the ninth position of the dial with what appeared to be nail polish. After a few moments of contemplation, he concluded that it stood for “Emergency,” meaning setting 9 must be the emergency frequency.
Lamar tested all of the knobs. Nothing. He turned the unit on its side to inspect the battery case. He noticed congealed white foam around the edge of the battery compartment. Lamar started to pry the cover off when a cough over his shoulder distracted him. He looked up and saw Ken staring down at him, judging him with his eyes. The others were all watching him intently as well.
Lamar had been so engrossed in his work that he hadn’t noticed the others were still there. His self-consciousness went into overdrive. He found himself sweating, unable to concentrate as he wilted under their collective gaze.
“Can you all just … just … ” he sputtered.
Gaby recognized the problem immediately and started to corral the others toward the wigwam to give Lamar so
me privacy.
“C’mon,” she insisted, as she tugged on the lapel of Ken’s shirt. “We’ve got to plan our defenses.”
* * * * * *
Ken, Gaby and Coop sat in a loose-knit circle around the teepee’s dormant firepit, alternating between staring at their feet and staring at each other as they tried to formulate a plan.
“I say we dig a tunnel in the side of the cliff,” Ken suggested. “The one going down to the floodplain. That way we can be close to camp if anyone ever does come to rescue us, but relatively protected if Wade comes back.”
“We can’t dig a tunnel that fits five people in half a day,” Gaby pointed out. “And any tunnel that large needs support or it’ll collapse.”
“We could …” Coop started, but rejected the idea before he even vocalized it. “No, never mind,” he finished, sighing in frustration.
“What about this?” Ken asked, taking a tree branch and sketching out two concentric circles in the dirt. “We dig a channel around the perimeter of camp. It wouldn’t have to be deep. Then we fill it with wood and leaves and set it ablaze when Wade comes. That should make him think twice.”
“That should make all of us think twice,” Beverly said as she opened door to the wigwam and joined the others. “Because it’s a terrible idea. We’d need truckloads of wood to keep the fire high enough to scare him off.”
“Nice of you to join us, Mrs. Howell,” Ken intoned. “Get lost on the way to the outhouse again?”
“The name’s Sutton,” Beverly replied as she sat down in between Gaby and Coop, seemingly oblivious to Ken’s pop culture reference. “And where I go is my business.”
Ken opened his mouth to make another cutting remark, but Gaby spoke first.
“Beverly’s right. The only thing your plan will do is start a forest fire,” she said, erasing Ken’s etchings. “We need practical solutions.”
“I’m not hearing any ideas from the rest of you,” Ken pointed out.
“We can’t defend the whole camp,” Gaby said after a moment’s reflection. “It’s too big, and it’s accessible from every side. So let’s protect what matters: this,” she said, touching the interior lattice wall of the wigwam. “All of us can fit in here, there’s only one entrance and we can store supplies and weapons in here. This is the prize.”
Beverly and Coop nodded their agreement.
“The problem is what to reinforce it with,” Coop said. “We could apply Ken’s idea to the wigwam.”
“A ring of fire around the building?” Beverly asked contemptuously.
“No, not that part,” Coop said with a laugh, drawing an ugly look from Ken. “The trench part. We could dig a deep trench around the whole structure, one that’s too wide to jump across.”
“That could be dicey,” Gaby said. “If the water table is too high, all we’d wind up digging is a mud puddle.”
She suddenly brightened as an idea occurred to her.
“Instead of digging down, what if we build up?” Gaby suggested. “We could erect a dirt mound around the building, one that’s steep from the outside but with a gradual slope on the interior.”
“You think a few feet of dirt is gonna stop him?” Ken chuckled.
“It doesn’t need to stop him,” Gaby replied. “All it needs to do is give us an advantage. If we do it right, it’ll restrict his movement without seriously hampering ours.”
“And how are we going to collect all this dirt in six hours with only a spade and our hands?” Ken asked, pointing out the weak point in Gaby’s plan with obvious relish.
Gaby was struggling to come up with an answer when the door to the teepee opened and Lamar appeared in the doorway.
“Any luck?” Coop asked hopefully.
Lamar shook his head.
“Not really,” he answered, holding up a 9-volt battery. Half of it looked normal, if a bit weathered, but the other side was partially melted and topped with a whitish substance that resembled mold.
“The battery leaked acid into the rear compartment,” Lamar explained, “eating through the transmission wire. I was able to switch it out for the receiving wire. That’s not a big deal; we’re more concerned with people hearing us than us hearing them. But without a power source, it’s moot.”
Ken shrugged.
“Use the batteries from your Walkman,” he said dismissively.
“They’re As,” Lamar responded. “Different voltage, different amperage, different shape; they won’t work. Same with the batteries in the flashlight.”
“So, there’s no chance?” Gaby asked, crestfallen at the news.
Lamar thought for a moment before answering.
“I can clean the contacts and pry them loose so we can hook them up to another power source,” he said, trying to give her some semblance of hope. “But barring us finding a 9-volt battery just lying around, our only chance would be to use …” Lamar trailed off again, but not out of embarrassment this time. His eyes turned glassy and he began stroking his goatee thoughtfully.
After several long seconds, Gaby spoke up.
“Lamar, you stopped midsentence,” she prodded him.
“Rechargeables,” Lamar said softly, speaking more to himself than the others.
“Rechargeable what?” Coop asked.
Lamar snapped out of his daze.
“A rechargeable battery cell is smart; they’re designed to work with a wide range of amperages and voltages,” he explained to the others, the words tumbling out his mouth as he grew more excited by the idea. “That’s why one battery can work in so many different types of phones. If we had something like that, I just might get this puppy working.”
“What are you getting all excited about?” Ken jeered. “You know perfectly well John confiscated all electronics at the start of the trip. Those battery cells won’t do us any good from 75 miles away.”
Lamar stole a glance at Coop.
“Not all of them,” he said quietly. Lamar unfastened his binary watch and held it up.
“This has a battery cell,” he said. “Now, this one’s too low-power for the C.B., but maybe one of you brought something with a little more juice.”
He scanned the faces of the others one by one, lingering on Coop just a little too long.
“You may have brought something here powered by a battery cell and not even realized it,” Lamar continued with his appeal. “Something you’ve packed that you forgot about. It could be something simple, like a pedometer or a smart watch. Maybe a pair of Bluetooth earbuds, or … uhmm … a tracking device,” he said, stealing another glance at Coop, who refused to meet Lamar’s gaze.
Ken folded his hands over his chest.
“Do you know something you aren’t telling us?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Beverly added, her eyes narrowing with suspicion. “And why do you keep looking at Coop?”
“Wha .. what?” Lamar stammered, taken aback by their reaction. “No, no, it’s nothing like that. I was just … hoping someone would come forward,” he finished lamely.
The others looked far from convinced. Ken and Beverly both studied his face intently, looking for any hint of deception. Even Gaby seemed to have her doubts. Lamar didn’t want to know what Coop’s reaction was, because looking at him again would only confirm that he’d just lied.
Coop stood up, flustered and irritated at the implication.
“I turned in my phone, the same as the rest of you!” he huffed. “I have no idea what he’s talking about!” he added before plopping down into the dirt again.
“I’m sure that’s true for all of us,” Gaby said to be supportive, although she did so with a noticeable lack of conviction.
An awkward silence settled over the group for several long seconds as they looked one to the other, uncertain of who to trust. Coop finally spoke up.
“Can we get back to something actually productive?” Coop asked, the aggravation evident in his voice as he tried to steer the conversation back to safer ground.
“I agre
e,” Ken said unexpectedly. “Even if we do find another battery, we have no idea if that thing’ll even work. Wade is the problem du jour. Let’s focus on that.”
“Fine,” Lamar said, making a mental note to confront Coop later, when the others weren’t around. “What have you all come up with?”
“Coop wants to build a moat around the wigwam, and Gaby wants to erect a dirt barrier around it,” Beverly said.
“That’s all you have to show for …” Lamar paused to consult his watch. “Forty-five minutes of work? Seriously?”
“Well, Ken wanted to burn the forest down,” Beverly responded drolly. “But we considered that impractical.”
“I like the idea of focusing on the teepee,” Lamar said. “That makes things more manageable. But why are you all fixated on dirt?”
He looked to Gaby and Coop. Coop merely glowered at him while Gaby shrugged.
“It’s the only building material we have to work with,” she said.
“We have wood,” Lamar replied. “Lots and lots of wood.”
Ken shook his head and chuckled.
“You can’t chop down trees with just a hatchet,” he explained. “You’d need an army of chainsaws to do that in the time we have left.”
An enigmatic smile slowly spread across Lamar’s face.
“I didn’t say anything about trees. And the only tools we’ll need are in the shed.”
The others listened carefully as Lamar outlined his plan, which they immediately embraced, as it was far more practical than the other solutions. To speed things up, they agreed to split into three teams: Gaby and Beverly would use the spade to dig a trench around the perimeter of the wigwam; Coop and Lamar would use the hammer to gather the wood; while Ken would use Gaby’s pocket knife to fashion weapons for the group.
“Why am I the only one without a partner?” Ken asked, somewhat miffed.
“Because you have the best chance of surviving a one-on-one fight with Wade,” Gaby explained, handing over her knife. “And because nobody wants to work with you.”
The Truth Circle Page 14